Kiwi Roaming

You can string a walk together anywhere in London and be able to see old buildings, monuments, graffiti, murals, squirrels, parks – no matter where you head you’ll find something interesting on your walk.

In the summer of 2026 London is hot, it’s like there is a huge heat dome above the city trapping the heat, so walking along the Thames (I will write another post on the Thames path specifically) and beside canals on the towpaths provides some respite along with an occasional cooling breeze.

Continuing my Free London Activities series here are #3 Regents Canal, #4 Kingston upon Thames to Richmond and #5 Richmond Hill.

All free other than the occasional cheeky ice cream or pint in a lovely pub that is.

#3 Regents Canal – Lime House to Victoria Park

From Isle of Dog’s it’s a short walk or bus ride to Lime House marina where the canal exits into the river Thames. The marina itself is fascinating, so many moored riverboats with people living in them (and more along the canal as well) and other interesting boats, lots of sculptures, paths for walking and running and loads of wee coffee carts too.

The Towpath here is pretty good, paved but undulating with tree routes in some places. It’s just on the Eastern side of the canal with apartment buildings and/or parks lining the path, and apartment buildings on the other side of the river. We walked on a busy Sunday morning, having a birthday chat with Don along the way which was lovely. There were loads and loads of runners, the occasional cyclist and lots of walkers like us. Our intended destination today was Victoria Park Market which is open on a Sunday from 11am – 5pm.

The first river boats we saw didn’t look lived in but as we travelled north we found them docked 2-3 deep at times with people out on the roof gardens enjoying the sunshine or sitting alongside their boats. All seemed to have solar panels and chimneys here too. We saw a sign for £25 per day mooring fees, which is more than we’d seen in Wales or even Milton Keynes, but we were in Central London of course. That said there are no facilities here for boat owners like there are in MK.

I’ve covered the Victoria Park market in another blog post but can say the walk is absolutely lovely, very easy and we could have continued on for kms if we weren’t looking for lunch and somewhere to watch the Wimbledon final!

A fantastic walk. Quintessentially London for me.

#4 Kingston to Richmond River Thames path

When Donovan was born (I started writing this on his birthday so it’s making me a little nostalgic) we lived in Hampton Wick and our main shopping village was Kingston upon Thames. I used to walk him along the path beside the castle wall and along this tow path – but had never done the whole thing.

We met Steve’s cousin Craig (who lives in Twickenham) at the Kingston station for the walk but also popped around the corner from the station to check out the Out of Order installation, full sized red telephone boxes laid out like domino’s. Quite cool.

The path is fully paved but we chose to walk some of the way on a gravel part to stay right beside the water. Kingston upon Thames and Richmond are both very affluent areas so the most interesting part is looking at the grand homes, hotels (including the one the All Blacks stay at) and apartment buildings along the other side of the river.

The walk took us a couple of hours, it’s lovely, interesting and there is lots to see. Not so many places to stop but there are a couple of cafe’s and bars along the way. We saw the “new” wild swimming spot where the council are testing the Thames water daily and have a safe to swim signs up. Only one brave swimmer along with a couple of dogs today.

We opted to pop into Tesco’s for a meal deal and eat lunch in Richmond park but taking a picnic and sitting in one of the many parks along the way would have been lovely too.

#5 Richmond Hill

You can start up Richmond Hill from the train station or Richmond Park, there are cute independent shops at the lowest level of the hill walk then into lovely terraced houses with cute gardens on the street side before you hit the edge of the park.

The view from the top is expansive and looks back down the Thames where we had been walking and across the south western suburbs. The lookout area at the top is quite extended with lots of park benches, fixed binoculars you can pay to use and lots of monuments, fountains and sculptures to look at with a different vista from everywhere.

Since we’d been walking for some hours at this point it was time for a pint so we went into the Roebuck an old old pub right at the top of the hill. Most people opted for their pints in a plastic cup so they could walk back across the road and admire the view from one of the many benches. I do love seeing people sitting in parks on picnic rugs with a bottle of wine or beers enjoying the outdoor spaces – which you can do in this country.

On the way down we watched two women painting a new mural near the bottom of the hill depicting local scenes and the view from the top.